Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [352]
Sunday, October 7th
Into the sixth week of dry, warm and sunny weather. I am much lifted by the Sunday press previews of the new Ripping Yarns. All papers carry extensive details and are uniformly glad to see the series back. ‘Topping treat of the season so far’ says Purser, and The Observer are very nice. All helps to counter Time Out’s ‘return of this desperately disappointing series’.
Feel tired, but rally to take the family down to Dulwich. Family lunch with all the Herberts (Jeremy just about to go up to York University for first term). Conker hunting along past Dulwich Picture Gallery in the afternoon.
Monday, October 8th
Begin work on the third act of the play. I feel committed to it now and am writing eagerly and easily – as if I’m now warmed-up, loosened up to the task and the end is in sight. I think I might actually make the self-imposed deadline of the end of October.
Over to Cadogan Square to talk to Denis O’B. He is off to the US on Wednesday to begin negotiations with Warner’s for the next Python movie. He wants 15% of the gross for the Pythons. Unheard of.
This afternoon in Denis’ small, rather endearingly cramped upper-room office, with bottles of Penrhos Porter on the table, we talk about Redwood and the future. Denis is hard. He says that he wouldn’t really mind if everyone involved with the studio left tomorrow – he could put people in to run it. He wants to protect and to use my £80,000 involvement in the studio to give me control and a steady profit – and to stop the rather generous but disorganised drift in the running of Redwood’s affairs.
All good sound business sense, but I have to fight hard for the consideration of the personal side and the relationships and obligations I feel I have with André, which cannot be easily commercially quantified.
I drive home feeling a little oppressed, knowing that all this will not be easy and feeling that Denis is being more destructive than constructive and is in danger of putting the whole spirit of Redwood and Neal’s Yard – the fun and the enjoyment – in jeopardy.
Tuesday, October 9th
To lunch at the Trattoria San Angelo in Albemarle Street with Aidan Chambers, who wants me to write a children’s book for Macmillan.
He brightens my day considerably. We are both northerners; he has a very blunt and untwee attitude to children’s books. He’s always fighting publishers for the right to be as open as possible with kids and to avoid either patronising or pretentious writing. I agree, for a tiny sum, to write one of the three new books for 8-11-year-olds. He’s trying to get Joyce Grenfell to do the other one.
Denis calls with another incredible piece of news. Before leaving for the US he was collating all the info on Jabberwocky, saw the agreement with me and was shocked. He could not believe that I was only getting 1½% and told John Goldstone that he would not dream of speaking to Warner’s on Jabberwocky’s behalf unless the percentages for me and TG were greatly improved. Within a couple of hours Denis had upped my percentage from 1½% to eight!
Wednesday, October 10th
More extensive coverage of tonight’s Ripping Yarn first episode. I really couldn’t have believed when I came back from Sag Harbor in mid-August to find that all the ITV channels had been off the air for over a week, that they would still have found no solution by mid-October. So ‘Whinfrey’s Last Case’ rivals only Sportsnight – boxing – for the TV viewers’ attention tonight. And it follows twenty-five minutes of MASH, which is the most successful (only successful) US comedy import.
Watch ‘Whinfrey’ with Nicky1 and Helen. Do not enjoy it at all, but then I never do when watching coldly at home – and especially not after two big-screen showings at BAFTA with laughter and great appreciation. The selective re-playing of the audience track is neither honest nor successful.
Thursday, October 11th
It’s a warm and benign morning – and sunshine rather appropriately streams in the window of All Hallows open-plan church,